"But I have a plan. I'm getting American wrestlers into fighting. I love those guys. I love Khabib, I love Islam. Those guys are the best. But I want American wrestlers as champions. I think that's the only group of people to go and get it back. It's gonna be the American wrestlers. It's the Eastern European wrestler that's the champion - very few strikers, they're wrestlers who are champions. We've got to get our wrestlers going back into the sport of mixed martial arts."
"The American wrestler isn't as open to fighting as we need them to be,"
Most current UFC champions come from Eastern Europe and possess wrestling foundations, with only a few champions primarily recognized as strikers. American wrestlers are less inclined to transition into mixed martial arts, contributing to an absence of male U.S.-born champions in the UFC. Close ties between top fighters from Dagestan illustrate wrestling's effectiveness in MMA. Historically, the UFC featured numerous American champions with wrestling backgrounds. A concerted effort has been initiated to recruit and encourage American wrestlers to enter mixed martial arts with the aim of restoring American championship representation in the promotion.
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